


Bauble-Eyes

by Fernstrike



Series: B2MeM 2017 [15]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Double Drabble, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Prose Poem, Spooky, There's something in the woods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 01:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10503639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fernstrike/pseuds/Fernstrike
Summary: The woodmen bar their doors, and hold their sons and daughters close.





	

>   _“The wood was full of the_ _rumour_ _of him, dreadful tales even among beasts and birds. The woodmen said that there was some new terror abroad, a ghost that drank blood. It climbed trees to find nests; it crept into holes to find the young; it slipped through windows to find cradles.”  
>  _ -The Fellowship of the Ring

 

The woodmen bar their doors, and keep their sons and daughters close. The nighttime brings a visitor the simple call a ‘ghost’ - yet some of them have seen it, and have all of them gone mum, their eyes remembering the monster that would only fear the sun.  
  
The washerwoman saw him steal into a chicken pen; she shut her ears against the frantic screaming of the hens. In the moonlight, pale as bone, on hands and feet it stood. It looked at her with bauble-eyes then loped back to the woods.  
  
The smithy lost his baby girl when it came in the night. He heard no sound - he felt no wind - he’d put out all the lights. But in it crept, with silent step, its fingers slipping noiseless past the ledge and to the cradle, melting back into the night. They never heard her crying. No scream, no scrape, no thud. Yet morning showed blankets and windowpane dotted with blood.  
  
They keep the fires burning now, set hunts and watches strict. They tell the elves who guard the borders. Lock their windows, whether it be high summer or snow. They bar their doors and hold their precious children close.

**Author's Note:**

> Completed for B2MeM 2017, purple path, with the prompt: Things that go bump in the night.


End file.
